The Vedic priests base their superior strength on the knowledge of the
sacrificial Mantras.[1] By the power of these Mantras, the Devas are made
to come down from their heavenly abodes, accept the drink and food
offerings, and grant the prayers of the Yajamânas.[2] The kings as well as their subjects are, therefore, looking up
to these priests for their welfare during their earthly life. Raja Soma[3] is
worshipped by the priest and is made to thrive by the power of his Mantras.
As such, the Devas, whose favourite food is the juice of the Soma plant
offered in oblation by the priest, are always kind to him and bestow his
desired boons. Thus strengthened by divine grace, he defies all human
opposition; for what can the power of mortals do against that of the gods?
Even the king, the centre of all earthly power, is a supplicant at his door.
A kind look from him is the greatest help; his mere blessing a tribute to
the State, pre-eminent above everything else.

Now commanding the king to be engaged in affairs fraught with death and
ruin, now standing by him as his fastest friend with kind and wise counsels,
now spreading the net of subtle, diplomatic statesmanship in which the king
is easily caught — the priest is seen, oftentimes, to make the royal power
totally subservient to him. Above all, the worst fear is in the knowledge
that the name and fame of the royal forefathers and of himself and his
family lie at the mercy of the priest's pen. He is the historian. The king
might have paramount power; attaining a great glory in his reign, he might
prove himself as the father and mother in one to his subjects; but if the
priest is not appeased, his sun of glory goes down with his last breath for
ever; all his worth and usefulness deserving of universal approbation are
lost in the great womb of time, like unto the fall of gentle dew on the
ocean. Others who inaugurated the huge sacrifices lasting over many years,
the performers of the Ashvamedha and so on — those who showered, like
incessant rain in the rainy season, countless wealth on the priests — their
names, thanks to the grace of priests, are emblazoned in the pages of
history. The name of Priyadarshi Dharmâshoka,[4] the beloved of the gods, is nothing
but a name in the priestly world, while Janamejaya,[5] son of Parikshit, is a household word
in every Hindu family.

To protect the State, to meet the expenses of the personal comforts and
luxuries of himself and his long retinue, and, above all, to fill to
overflowing the coffers of the all-powerful priesthood for its propitiation,
the king is continually draining the resources of his subjects, even as the
sun sucks up moisture from the earth. His especial prey — his milch cows —
are the Vaishyas.

Neither under the Hindu kings, nor under the Buddhist rule, do we find the
common subject-people taking any part in expressing their voice in the
affairs of the State. True, Yudhishthira visits the houses of Vaishyas and
even Shudras when he is in Vâranâvata; true, the subjects are praying for
the installation of Râmachandra to the regency of Ayodhyâ; nay, they are
even criticising the conduct of Sitâ and secretly making plans for the
bringing about of her exile: but as a recognised rule of the State they have
no direct voice in the supreme government. The power of the populace is
struggling to express itself in indirect and disorderly ways without any
method. The people have not as yet the conscious knowledge of the existence
of this power. There is neither the attempt on their part to organise it
into a united action, nor have they got the will to do so; there is also a
complete absence of that capacity, that skill, by means of which small and
incoherent centres of force are united together, creating insuperable
strength as their resultant.

Is this due to want of proper laws? — no, that is not it. There are laws,
there are methods, separately and distinctly assigned for the guidance of
different departments of government, there are laws laid down in the
minutest detail for everything, such as the collection of revenue, the
management of the army, the administration of justice, punishments and
rewards. But at the root of all, is the injunction of the Rishi — the word
of divine authority, the revelation of God coming through the inspired
Rishi. The laws have, it can almost be said, no elasticity in them. Under
the circumstances, it is never possible for the people to acquire any sort
of education by which they can learn to combine among themselves and be
united for the accomplishment of any object for the common good of the
people, or by which they can have the concerted intellect to conceive the
idea of popular right in the treasures collected by the king from his
subjects, or even such education by which they can be fired with the
aspiration to gain the right of representation in the control of State
revenues and expenditure. Why should they do such things? Is not the
inspiration of the Rishi responsible for their prosperity and progress?

Again, all those laws are in books. Between laws as codified in books and
their operation in practical life, there is a world of difference. One
Ramachandra is born after thousands of Agnivarnas[6] pass away! Many kings
show us the life of Chandâshoka[7] ;
Dharmâshokas are rare! The number of
kings like Akbar, in whom the subjects find their life, is far less than
that of kings like Aurangzeb who live on the blood of their people!

Even if the kings be of as godlike nature as that of Yudhishthira,
Ramachandra, Dharmashoka, or Akbar under whose benign rule the people
enjoyed safety and prosperity, and were looked after with paternal care by
their rulers, the hand of him who is always fed by another gradually loses
the power of taking the food to his mouth. His power of self-preservation
can never become fully manifest who is always protected in every respect by
another. Even the strongest youth remains but a child if he is always looked
after as a child by his parents. Being always governed by kings of godlike
nature, to whom is left the whole duty of protecting and providing for the
people, they can never get any occasion for understanding the principles of
self-government. Such a nation, being entirely dependent on the king for
everything and never caring to exert itself for the common good or for
self-defence, becomes gradually destitute of inherent energy and strength.
If this state of dependence and protection continues long, it becomes the
cause of the destruction of the nation, and its ruin is not far to seek.

Of course, it can be reasonably concluded that, when the government a
country, is guided by codes of laws enjoined by Shâstras which are the
outcome of knowledge inspired by the divine genius of great sages, such a
government must lead to the unbroken welfare of the rich and the poor, the
wise and the ignorant, the king and the subjects alike. But we have seen
already how far the operation of those laws was, or may be, possible in
practical life. The voice of the ruled in the government of their land —
which is the watchword of the modern Western world, and of which the last
expression has been echoed with a thundering voice in the Declaration of the
American Government, in the words, "That the government of the people of
this country must be by the people and for the good of the people" — cannot
however be said to have been totally unrecognised in ancient India. The
Greek travellers and others saw many independent small States scattered all
over this country, and references are also found to this effect in many
places of the Buddhistic literature. And there cannot be the least doubt
about it that the germ of self-government was at least present in the shape
of the village Panchâyat,[8] which
is still to be found in existence in many places of India. But the germ
remained for ever the germ; the seed though put in the ground never grew
into a tree. This idea of self-government never passed beyond the embryo
state of the village Panchayat system and never spread into society at
large.

In the religious communities, among Sannyasins in the Buddhist monasteries,
we have ample evidence to show that self-government was fully developed.
Even now, one wonders to see how the power of the Panchayat system of the
principles of self-government, is working amongst the Nâgâ Sannyasins — what
deep respect the "Government by the Five" commands from them, what effective
individual rights each Naga can exercise within his own sect, what excellent
working of the power of organisation and concerted action they have among
themselves!

With the deluge which swept the land at the advent of Buddhism, the priestly
power fell into decay and the royal power was in the ascendant. Buddhist
priests are renouncers of the world, living in monasteries as homeless
ascetics, unconcerned with secular affairs. They have neither the will nor
the endeavour to bring and keep the royal power under their control through
the threat of curses or magic arrows. Even if there were any remnant of such
a will, its fulfilment has now become an impossibility. For Buddhism has
shaken the thrones of all the oblation-eating gods and brought them down
from their heavenly positions. The state of being a Buddha is superior to
the heavenly positions of many a Brahmâ or an Indra, who vie with each other
in offering their worship at the feet of the Buddha, the God-man! And to
this Buddhahood, every man has the privilege to attain; it is open to all
even in this life. From the descent of the gods, as a natural consequence,
the superiority of the priests who were supported by them is gone.

Accordingly, the reins of that mighty sacrificial horse — the royal power
— are no longer held in the firm grasp of the Vedic priest; and being now
free, it can roam anywhere by its unbridled will. The centre of power in
this period is neither with the priests chanting the Sâma hymns and
performing the Yajnas according to the Yajur-Veda; nor is the power vested
in the hands of Kshatriya kings separated from each other and ruling over
small independent States. But the centre of power in this age is in emperors
whose unobstructed sway extend over vast areas bounded by the ocean,
covering the whole of India from one end to the other. The leaders of this
age are no longer Vishvâmitra or Vasishtha, but emperors like Chandragupta,
Dharmashoka, and others. There never were emperors who ascended the throne
of India and led her to the pinnacle of her glory such as those lords of the
earth who ruled over her in paramount sway during the Buddhistic period. The
end of this period is characterised by the appearance of Râjput power on the
scene and the rise of modern Hinduism. With the rise of Rajput power, on the
decline of Buddhism, the sceptre of the Indian empire, dislodged from its
paramount power, was again broken into a thousand pieces and wielded by
small powerless hands. At this time, the Brâhminical (priestly) power again
succeeded in raising its head, not as an adversary as before, but this time
as an auxiliary to the royal supremacy.

During this revolution, that perpetual struggle for supremacy between the
priestly and the royal classes, which began from the Vedic times and
continued through ages till it reached its climax at the time of the Jain
and Buddhist revolutions, has ceased for ever. Now these two mighty powers
are friendly to each other; but neither is there any more that glorious
Kshatra (warlike) velour of the kings, nor that spiritual brilliance which
characterised the Brahmins; each has lost his former intrinsic strength. As
might be expected, this new union of the two forces was soon engaged in the
satisfaction of mutual self-interests, and became dissipated by spending its
vitality on extirpating their common opponents, especially the Buddhists of
the time, and on similar other deeds. Being steeped in all the vices
consequent on such a union, e.g., the sucking of the blood of the masses,
taking revenge on the enemy, spoliation of others' property, etc., they in
vain tried to imitate the Râjasuya and other Vedic sacrifices of the ancient
kings, and only made a ridiculous farce of them. The result was that they
were bound hand and foot by a formidable train of sycophantic attendance and
its obsequious flatteries, and being entangled in an interminable net of
rites and ceremonies with flourishes of Mantras and the like, they soon
became a cheap and ready prey to the Mohammeden invaders from the West.

That priestly power which began its strife for superiority with the royal
power from the Vedic times and continued it down the ages, that hostility
against the Kshatra power, Bhagavân Shri Krishna succeeded by his
super-human genius in putting a stop to, at least for the tired being,
during his earthly existence. That Brâhmanya power was almost effaced from
its field of work in India during the Jain and Buddhist revolutions, or,
perhaps, was holding its feeble stand by being subservient to the strong
antagonistic religions. That Brahmanya power, since this appearance of
Rajput power, which held sway over India under the Mihira dynasty and
others, made its last effort to recover its lost greatness; and in its
effort to establish that supremacy, it sold itself at the feet of the fierce
hordes of barbarians newly come from Central Asia, and to win their pleasure
introduced in the land their hateful manners and customs. Moreover, it, the
Brahmanya; power, solely devoting itself to the easy means to dupe ignorant
barbarians, brought into vogue mysterious rites and ceremonies backed by its
new Mantras and the like; and in doing so, itself lost its former wisdom,
its former vigour and vitality, and its own chaste habits of long
acquirement. Thus it turned the whole Âryâvarta into a deep and vast
whirlpool of the most vicious, the most horrible, the most abominable,
barbarous customs; and as the inevitable consequence of countenancing these
detestable customs and superstitions, it soon lost all its own internal
strength and stamina and became the weakest of the weak. What wonder that it
should be broken into a thousand pieces and fall at the mere touch of the
storm of Mussulman invasions from the West! That great Brahmanya power fell
— who knows, if ever to rise again?

The resuscitation of the priestly power under the Mussulman rule was, on the
other hand, an utter impossibility. The Prophet Mohammed himself was dead
against the priestly class in any shape and tried his best for the total
destruction of this power by formulating rules and injunctions to that
effect. Under the Mussulman rule, the king himself was the supreme priest;
he was the chief guide in religious matters; and when he became the emperor,
he cherished the hope of being the paramount leader in all matters over the
whole Mussulman world. To the Mussulman, the Jews or the Christians are not
objects of extreme detestation; they are, at the worst, men of little faith.
But not so the Hindu. According to him, the Hindu is idolatrous, the hateful
Kafir; hence in this life he deserves to be butchered; and in the next,
eternal hell is in store for him. The utmost the Mussulman kings could do as
a favour to the priestly class — the spiritual guides of these Kafirs — was
to allow them somehow to pass their life silently and wait for the last
moment. This was again sometimes considered too, much kindness! If the
religious ardour of any king was a little more uncommon, there would
immediately follow arrangements for a great Yajna by way of Kafir-slaughter!

On one side, the royal power is now centred in kings professing a different
religion and given to different customs. On the other, the priestly power
has been entirely displaced from its influential position as the controller
and lawgiver of the society. The Koran and its code of laws have taken the
place of the Dharma Shâstras of Manu and others. The Sanskrit language has
made room for the Persian and the Arabic. The Sanskrit language has to
remain confined only to the purely religious writings and religious matters
of the conquered and detested Hindu, and, as such, has since been living a
precarious life at the hands of the neglected priest. The priest himself,
the relic of the Brahmanya power, fell back upon the last resource of
conducting only the comparatively unimportant family ceremonies, such as the
matrimonial etc., and that also only so long and as much as the mercy of the
Mohammedan rulers permitted.

In the Vedic and the adjoining periods, the royal power could not manifest
itself on account of the grinding pressure of the priestly power. We have
seen how, during the Buddhistic revolution, resulting in the fall of the
Brahminical supremacy, the royal power in India reached its culminating
point. In the interval between the fall of the Buddhistic and the
establishment of the Mohammedan empire, we have seen how the royal power was
trying to raise its head through the Rajputs in India, and how it failed in
its attempt. At the root of this failure, too, could be traced the same old
endeavours of the Vedic priestly class to bring back and revive with a new
life their original (ritualistic) days.

Crushing the Brahminical supremacy under his feet the Mussulman king was
able to restore to a considerable extent the lost glories of such dynasties
of emperors as the Maurya, the Gupta, the Andhra, and the Kshâtrapa.[9]

Thus the priestly power — which sages like Kumârila, Shankara, and Râmânuja
tried to re-establish, which for some time was supported by the sword of the
Rajput power, and which tried to rebuild its structure on the fall of its
Jain and Buddhist adversaries — was under Mohammedan rule laid to sleep for
ever, knowing no awakening. In this period, the antagonism or warfare is not
between kings and priests, but between kings and kings. At the end of this
period, when Hindu power again raised its head, and, to some extent, was
successful in regenerating Hinduism through the Mahrattas and the Sikhs, we
do not find much play of the priestly power with these regenerations. On the
contrary, when the Sikhs admitted any Brahmin into their sect, they, at
first, compelled him publicly to give up his previous Brahminical signs and
adopt the recognised signs of their own religion.

In this manner, after an age-long play of action and reaction between these
two forces, the final victory of the royal power was echoed on the soil of
India for several centuries, in the name of foreign monarchs professing an
entirely different religion from the faith of the land. But at the end of
this Mohammedan period, another entirely new power made its appearance on
the arena and slowly began to assert its prowess in the affairs of the
Indian world.

This power is so new, its nature and workings are so foreign to the Indian
mind, its rise so inconceivable, and its vigour so insuperable that though
it wields the suzerain power up till now, only a handful of Indians
understand what this power is.

We are talking of the occupation of India by England.

From very ancient times, the fame of India's vast wealth and her rich
granaries has enkindled in many powerful foreign nations the desire for
conquering her. She has been, in fact, again and again conquered by foreign
nations. Then why should we say that the occupation of India by England was
something new and foreign to the Indian mind?

From time immemorial Indians have seen the mightiest royal power tremble
before the frown of the ascetic priest, devoid of worldly desire, armed with
spiritual strength — the power of Mantras (sacred formulas) and religious
lore — and the weapon of curses. They have also seen the subject people
silently obey the commands of their heroic all-powerful suzerains, backed by
their arms and armies, like a flock of sheep before a lion. But that a
handful of Vaishyas (traders) who, despite their great wealth, have ever
crouched awe stricken not only before the king but also before any member of
the royal family, would unite, cross for purposes of business rivers and
seas, would, solely by virtue of their intelligence and wealth, by degrees
make puppets of the long-established Hindu and Mohammedan dynasties; not
only so, but that they would buy as well the services of the ruling powers
of their own country and use their valour and learning as powerful
instruments for the influx of their own riches — this is a spectacle
entirely novel to the Indians, as also the spectacle that the descendants of
the mighty nobility of a country, of which a proud lord, sketched by the
extraordinary pen of its great poet, says to a common man, "Out, dunghill!
darest thou brave a nobleman?" would, in no distant future, consider it the
zenith of human ambition to be sent to India as obedient servants of a body
of merchants, called The East India Company — such a sight was, indeed, a
novelty unseen by India before!

According to the prevalence, in greater or lesser degree, of the three
qualities of Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas in man, the four castes, the Brahmin,
Kashatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra, are everywhere present at all times, in all
civilised societies. By the mighty hand of time, their number and power also
vary at different times in regard to different countries. In some countries
the numerical strength or influence of one of these castes may preponderate
over another; at some period, one of the classes may be more powerful than
the rest. But from a careful study of the history of the world, it appears
that in conformity to the law of nature the four castes, the Brahmin,
Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra do, in every society, one after another in
succession, govern the world.

Among the Chinese, the Sumerians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the
Chaldeans, the Areas, the Iranians, the Jews, the Arabs — among all these
ancient nations, the supreme power of guiding society is, in the first
period of their history, in the hands of the Brahmin or the priest. In the
second period, the ruling power is the Kshatriya, that is, either absolute
monarchy or oligarchical government by a chosen body of men. Among the
modern Western nations, with England at their head, this power of
controlling society has been, for the first time, in the hands of the
Vaishyas or mercantile communities, made rich through the carrying on of
commerce.

Though Troy and Carthage of ancient times and Venice and similar other small
commercial States of comparatively modern times became highly powerful, yet,
amongst them, there was not the real rising of the Vaishya power in the
proper sense of the term.

Correctly speaking, the descendants of the royal family had the sole
monopoly of the commerce of those old days by employing the common people
and their servants under them to carry on the trade; and they appropriated
to themselves the profits accruing from it. Excepting these few men, no one
was allowed to take any part or voice an opinion even in the government of
the country and kindred affairs. In the oldest countries like Egypt, the
priestly power enjoyed unmolested supremacy only for a short period, after
which it became subjugated to the royal power and lived as an auxiliary to
it. In China, the royal power, centralised by the genius of Confucius, has
been controlling and guiding the priestly power, in accordance with its
absolute will, for more than twenty-five centuries; and during the last two
centuries, the all-absorbing Lamas of Tibet, though they are the spiritual
guides of the royal family, have been compelled to pass their days, being
subject in every way to the Chinese Emperor.

In India, the royal power succeeded in conquering the priestly power and
declaring its untrammelled authority long after the other ancient civilised
nations had done so; and therefore the inauguration of the Indian Empire
came about long after the Chinese, Egyptian, Babylonian, and other Empires
had risen. It was only with the Jewish people that the royal power, though
it tried hard to establish its supremacy over the priestly, had to meet a
complete defeat in the attempt. Not even the Vaishyas attained the ruling
power with the Jews. On the other hand, the common subject people, trying to
free themselves from the shackles of priestcraft, were crushed to death
under the internal commotion of adverse religious movements like
Christianity and the external pressure of the mighty Roman Empire.

As in the ancient days the priestly power, in spite of its long-continued
struggle, was subdued by the more powerful royal power, so, in modern times,
before the violent blow of the newly-risen Vaishya power, many a kingly
crown has to kiss the ground, many a sceptre is for ever broken to pieces.
Only those few thrones which are allowed still to exercise some power in
some of the civilised countries and make a display of their royal pomp and
grandeur are all maintained solely by the vast hordes of wealth of these
Vaishya communities — the dealers in salt, oil, sugar, and wine — and kept
up as a magnificent and an imposing front, and as a means of glorification
to the really governing body behind, the Vaishyas.

That mighty newly-risen Vaishya power — at whose command, electricity
carries messages in an instant from one pole to another, whose highway is
the vast ocean, with its mountain-high waves, at whose instance, commodities
are being carried with the greatest ease from one part of the globe to
another, and at whose mandate, even the greatest monarchs tremble — on the
white foamy crest of that huge wave the all-conquering Vaishya power, is
installed the majestic throne of England in all its grandeur.

Therefore the conquest of India by England is not a conquest by Jesus or the
Bible as we are often asked to believe. Neither is it like the conquest of
India by the Moguls and the Pathans. But behind the name of the Lord Jesus,
the Bible, the magnificent palaces, the heavy tramp of the feet of armies
consisting of elephants, chariots, cavalry, and infantry, shaking the earth,
the sounds of war trumpets, bugles, and drums, and the splendid display of
the royal throne, behind all these, there is always the virtual presence of
England — that England whose war flag is the factory chimney, whose troops
are the merchantmen, whose battlefields are the market-places of the world,
and whose Empress is the shining Goddess of Fortune herself! It is on this
account I have said before that it is indeed an unseen novelty, this
conquest of India by England. What new revolution will be effected in India
by her clash with the new giant power, and as the result of that revolution
what new transformation is in store for future India, cannot be inferred
from her past history.

I have stated previously that the four castes, Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya,
and Shudra do, in succession, rule the world. During the period of supreme
authority exercised by each of these castes, some acts are accomplished
which conduce to the welfare of the people, while others are injurious to
them.

The foundation of the priestly power rests on intellectual strength, and not
on the physical strength of arms. Therefore, with the supremacy of the
priestly power, there is a great prevalence of intellectual and literary
culture. Every human heart is always anxious for communication with, and
help from, the supersensuous spiritual world. The entrance to that world is
not possible for the generality of mankind; only a few great souls who can
acquire a perfect control over their sense-organs and who are possessed with
a nature preponderating with the essence of Sattva Guna are able to pierce
the formidable wall of matter and come face to face, as it were, with the
supersensuous — it is only they who know the workings of the kingdom that
bring the messages from it and show the way to others. These great souls are
the priests, the primitive guides, leaders, and movers of human societies.

The priest knows the gods and communicates with them; he is therefore
worshipped as a god. Leaving behind the thoughts of the world, he has no
longer to devote himself to the earning of his bread by the sweat of his
brow. The best and foremost parts of all food and drink are due as offerings
to the gods; and of these gods, the visible proxies on earth are the
priests. It is through their mouths that they partake of the offerings.
Knowingly or unknowingly, society gives the priest abundant leisure, and he
can therefore get the opportunity of being meditative and of thinking higher
thoughts. Hence the development of wisdom and learning originates first with
the supremacy of the priestly power. There stands the priest between the
dreadful lion — the king — on the one hand, and the terrified flock of sheep
— the subject people — on the other. The destructive leap of the lion is
checked by the controlling rod of spiritual power in the hands of the
priest. The flame of the despotic will of the king, maddened in the pride of
his wealth and men, is able to burn into ashes everything that comes in his
way; but it is only a word from the priest, who has neither wealth nor men
behind him but whose sole strength is his spiritual power, that can quench
the despotic royal will, as water the fire.

With the ascendancy of the priestly supremacy are seen the first advent of
civilisation, the first victory of the divine nature over the animal, the
first mastery of spirit over matter, and the first manifestation of the
divine power which is potentially present in this very slave of nature, this
lump of flesh, to wit, the human body. The priest is the first discriminator
of spirit from matter, the first to help to bring this world in communion
with the next, the first messenger from the gods to man, and the intervening
bridge that connects the king with his subjects. The first offshoot of
universal welfare and good is nursed by his spiritual power, by his devotion
to learning and wisdom, by his renunciation, the watchword of his life and,
watered even by the flow of his own life-blood. It is therefore that in
every land it was he to whom the first and foremost worship was offered. It
is therefore that even his memory is sacred to us!

There are evils as well. With the growth of life is sown simultaneously the
seed of death. Darkness and light always go together. Indeed, there are
great evils which, if not checked in proper time, lead to the ruin of
society. The play of power through gross matter is universally experienced;
everyone sees, everyone understands, the mighty manifestation of gross
material force as displayed in the play of battle-axes and swords, or in the
burning properties of fire and lightning. Nobody doubts these things, nor
can there ever be any question about their genuineness. But where the
repository of power and the centre of its play are wholly mental, where the
power is confined to certain special words, to certain special modes of
uttering them, to the mental repetition of certain mysterious syllables, or
to other similar processes and applications of the mind, there light is
mixed with shade, there the ebb and flow naturally disturb the otherwise
unshaken faith, and there even when things are actually seen or directly
perceived, still sometimes doubts arise as to their real occurrence. Where
distress, fear, anger, malice, spirit of retaliation, and the like passions
of man, leaving the palpable force of arms, leaving the gross material
methods to gain the end in view which every one can understand, substitute
in their stead the mysterious mental processes like Stambhana, Uchchâtana,
Vashikarana, and Mârana[10]
for their fructification — there a cloud of
smoky indistinctness, as it were, naturally envelops the mental atmosphere
of these men who often live and move in such hazy worlds of obscure
mysticism. No straight line of action presents itself before such a mind;
even if it does, the mind distorts it into crookedness. The final result of
all this is insincerity — that very limited narrowness of the heart — and
above all, the most fatal is the extreme intolerance born of malicious envy
at the superior excellence of another.

The priest naturally says to himself: "Why should I part with the power that
has made the Devas subservient to me, has given me mastery over physical and
mental illnesses, and has gained for me the service of ghosts, demons, and
other unseen spirits? I have dearly bought this power by the price of
extreme renunciation. Why should I give to others that to get which I had to
give up my wealth, name, fame, in short, all my earthly comforts and
happiness?" Again, that power is entirely mental. And how many opportunities
are there of keeping it a perfect secret! Entangled in this wheel of
circumstances, human nature becomes what it inevitably would: being used to
practice constant self-concealment, it becomes a victim of extreme
selfishness and hypocrisy, and at last succumbs to the poisonous
consequences which they bring in their train. In time, the reaction of this
very desire to concealment rebounds upon oneself. All knowledge, all wisdom
is almost lost for want of proper exercise and diffusion, and what little
remains is thought to have been obtained from some supernatural source; and,
therefore, far from making fresh efforts to go in for originality and gain
knowledge of new sciences, it is considered useless and futile to attempt
even to improve the remnants of the old by cleansing them of their
corruptions. Thus lost to former wisdom, the former indomitable spirit of
self-reliance, the priest, now glorifying himself merely in the name of his
forefathers, vainly struggles to preserve untarnished for himself the same
glory, the same privilege, the same veneration, and the same supremacy as
was enjoyed by his great forefathers. Consequently, his violent collision
with the other castes.

According to the law of nature, wherever there is an awakening of a new and
stronger life, there it tries to conquer and take the place of the old and
the decaying. Nature favours the dying out of the unfit and the survival of
the fittest. The final result of such conflict between the priestly and the
other classes has been mentioned already.

That renunciation, self-control, and asceticism of the priest which during
the period of his ascendancy were devoted to the pursuance of earnest
researches of truth are on the eve of his decline employed anew and spent
solely in the accumulation of objects of self-gratification and in the
extension of privileged superiority over others. That power, the
centralization of which in himself gave him all honour and worship, has now
been dragged down from its high heavenly position to the lowest abyss of
hell. Having lost sight of the goal, drifting aimless, the priestly power is
entangled, like the spider, in the web spun by itself. The chain that has
been forged from generation to generation with the greatest care to be put
on others' feet is now tightened round its own in a thousand coils, and is
thwarting its own movement in hundreds of ways. Caught in the endless thread
of the net of infinite rites, ceremonies, and customs, which it spread on
all sides as external means for purification of the body and the mind with a
view to keeping society in the iron grasp of these innumerable bonds — the
priestly power, thus hopelessly entangled from head to foot, is now asleep
in despair! There is no escaping out of it now. Tear the net, and the
priesthood of the priest is shaken to its foundation! There is implanted in
every man, naturally, a strong desire for progress; and those who, finding
that the fulfilment of this desire is an impossibility so long as one is
trammelled in the shackles of priesthood, rend this net and take to the
profession of other castes in order to earn money thereby — them, the
society immediately dispossesses of their priestly rights. Society has no
faith in the Brahminhood of the so-called Brahmins who, instead of keeping
the Shikhâ,[11] part their hair, who, giving up their ancient habits and
ancestral customs, clothe themselves in semi European dress and adopt the
newly introduced usages from the West in a hybrid fashion. Again, in those
parts of India, wherever this new-comer, the English Government, is
introducing new modes of education and opening up new channels for the
coming in of wealth, there hosts of Brahmin youths are giving up their
hereditary priestly profession and trying to earn their livelihood and
become rich by adopting the callings of other castes, with the result that
the habits and customs of the priestly class, handed down from their distant
forefathers, are scattered to the winds and are fast disappearing from the
land.

In Gujarat, each secondary sect of the Brahmins is divided into two
subdivisions, one being those who still stick to the priestly profession,
while the other lives by other professions. There only the first
subdivisions, carrying on the priestly profession, are called "Brâhmanas",
and though the other subdivisions are by lineage descendants from Brahmin
fathers, yet the former do not link themselves in matrimonial relation with
the latter. For example, by the name of "Nâgara Brâhmana" are meant only
those Brahmins who are priests living on alms; and by the name "Nâgara" only
are meant those Brahmins who have accepted service under the Government, or
those who have been carrying on the Vaishya's profession. But it appears
that such distinctions will not long continue in these days in Gujarat. Even
the sons of the "Nagara Brahmanas" are nowadays getting English education,
and entering into Government service, or adopting some mercantile business.
Even orthodox Pandits of the old school, undergoing pecuniary difficulties,
are sending their sons to the colleges of the English universities or making
them choose the callings of Vaidyas, Kâyasthas, and other non-Brahmin
castes. If the current of affairs goes on running in this course, then it is
a question of most serious reflection, no doubt, how long more will the
priestly class continue on India's soil. Those who lay the fault of
attempting to bring down the supremacy of the priestly class at the door of
any particular person or body of persons other than themselves ought to know
that, in obedience to the inevitable law of nature, the Brahmin caste is
erecting with its own hands its own sepulchre; and this is what ought to be.
It is good and appropriate that every caste of high birth and privileged
nobility should make it its principal duty to raise its own funeral pyre
with its own hands. Accumulation of power is as necessary as its diffusion,
or rather more so. The accumulation of blood in the heart is an
indispensable condition for life; its non-circulation throughout the body
means death. For the welfare of society, it is absolutely necessary at
certain times to have all knowledge and power concentrated in certain
families or castes to the exclusion of others, but that concentrated power
is focussed for the time being, only to be scattered broadcast over the
whole of society in future. If this diffusion be withheld, the destruction
of that society is, without doubt, near at hand.

On the other side, the king is like the lion; in him are present both the
good and evil propensities of the lord of beasts. Never for a moment his
fierce nails are held back from tearing to pieces the heart of innocent
animals, living on herbs and grass, to allay his thirst for blood when
occasion arises; again, the poet says, though himself stricken with old age
and dying with hunger, the lion never kills the weakest fox that throws
itself in his arms for protection. If the subject classes, for a moment,
stand as impediments in the way of the gratification of the senses of the
royal lion, their death knell is inevitably tolled; if they humbly bow down
to his commands, they are perfectly safe. Not only so. Not to speak of
ancient days, even in modern times, no society can be found in any country
where the effectiveness of individual self-sacrifice for the good of the
many and of the oneness of purpose and endeavour actuating every member of
the society for the common good of the whole have been fully realised. Hence
the necessity of the kings who are the creations of the society itself. They
are the centres where all the forces of society, otherwise loosely scattered
about, are made to converge, and from which they start and course through
the body politic and animate society.

As during the Brâhminical supremacy, at the first stage is the awakening of
the first impulse for search after knowledge, and later the continual and
careful fostering of the growth of that impulse still in its infancy — so,
during the Kshatriya supremacy, a strong desire for pleasure pursuits has
made its appearance at the first stage, and later have sprung up inventions
and developments of arts and sciences as the means for its gratification.
Can the king, in the height of his glory, hide his proud head within the
lowly cottages of the poor? Or can the common good of his subjects ever
minister to his royal appetite with satisfaction?

He whose dignity bears no comparison with anyone else on earth, he who is
divinity residing in the temple of the human body — for the common man, to
cast even a mere glance at his, the king's, objects of pleasure is a great
sin; to think of ever possessing them is quite out of the question. The body
of the king is not like the bodies of other people, it is too sacred to be
polluted by any contamination; in certain countries it is even believed
never to come under the sway of death. A halo of equal sacredness shines
around the queen, so she is scrupulously guarded from the gaze of the common
folk, not even the sun may cast a glance on her beauty! Hence the rising of
magnificent palaces to take the place of thatched cottages. The sweet
harmonious strain of artistic music, flowing as it were from heaven,
silenced the disorderly jargon of the rabble. Delightful gardens, pleasant
groves, beautiful galleries, charming paintings, exquisite sculptures, fine
and costly apparel began to displace by gradual steps the natural beauties
of rugged woods and the rough and coarse dress of the simple rustic.
Thousands of intelligent men left the toilsome task of the ploughman and
turned their attention to the new field of fine arts, where they could
display the finer play of their intellect in less laborious and easier ways.
Villages lost their importance; cities rose in their stead.

It was in India, again, that the kings, after having enjoyed for some time
earthly pleasures to their full satisfaction, were stricken at the latter
part of their lives with heavy world-weariness, as is sure to follow on
extreme sense-gratification; and thus being satiated with worldly pleasures,
they retired at their old age into secluded forests, and there began to
contemplate the deep problems of life. The results of such renunciation and
deep meditation were marked by a strong dislike for cumbrous rites and
ceremonials and an extreme devotion to the highest spiritual truths which we
find embodied in the Upanishads, the Gita, and the Jain and the Buddhist
scriptures. Here also was a great conflict between the priestly and the
royal powers. Disappearance of the elaborate rites and ceremonials meant a
death-blow to the priest's profession. Therefore, naturally, at all times
and in every country, the priests gird up their loins and try their best to
preserve the ancient customs and usages, while on the other side stand in
opposition kings like Janaka, backed by Kshatriya prowess as well as
spiritual power. We have dealt at length already on this bitter antagonism
between the two parties.

As the priest is busy about centralising all knowledge and learning at a
common centre, to wit, himself, so the king is ever up and doing in
collecting all the earthly powers and focusing them in a central point, i.e.
his own self. Of course, both are beneficial to society. At one time they
are both needed for the common good of society, but that is only at its
infant stage. But if attempts be made, when society has passed its infant
stage and reached its vigorous youthful condition, to clothe it by force
with the dress which suited it in its infancy and keep it bound within
narrow limits, then either it bursts the bonds by virtue of its own strength
and tries to advance, or where it fails to do so, it retraces its footsteps
and by slow degrees returns to its primitive uncivilised condition.

Kings are like parents to their subjects, and the subjects are the kings'
children. The subjects should, in every respect, look up to the king and
stick to their king with unreserved obedience, and the king should rule them
with impartial justice and look to their welfare and bear the same affection
towards them as he would towards his own children. But what rule applies to
individual homes applies to the whole society as well, for society is only
the aggregate of individual homes. "When the son attains the age of sixteen,
the father ought to deal with him as his friend and equal"[12] — if that is
the rule, does not the infant society ever attain that age of sixteen? It is
the evidence of history that at a certain time every society attains its
manhood, when a strong conflict ensues between the ruling power and the
common people. The life of the society, its expansion and civilisation,
depend on its victory or defeat in this conflict.

Such changes, revolutionizing society, have been happening in India again
and again, only in this country they have been effected in the name of
religion, for religion is the life of India, religion is the language of
this country, the symbol of all its movements. The Chârvâka, the Jain, the
Buddhist, Shankara, Ramanuja, Kabir, Nânak, Chaitanya, the Brâhmo Samâj, the
Arya Samaj — of all these and similar other sects, the wave of religion,
foaming, thundering, surging, breaks in the front, while in the rear follows
the filling-up of social wants. If all desires can be accomplished by the
mere utterance of some meaningless syllables, then who will exert himself
and go through difficulties to work out the fulfilment of his desires? If
this malady enters into the entire body of any social system, then that
society becomes slothful and indisposed to any exertion, and soon hastens to
it, ruin. Hence the slashing sarcasm of the Charvakas, who believed only in
the reality of sense-perceptions and nothing beyond. What could have saved
Indian society from the ponderous burden of omnifarious ritualistic
ceremonialism, with its animal and other sacrifices, which all but crushed
the very life out of it, except the Jain revolution which took its strong
stand exclusively on chaste morals and philosophical truth? Or without the
Buddhist revolution what would have delivered the suffering millions of the
lower classes from the violent tyrannies of the influential higher castes?
When, in course of time, Buddhism declined and its extremely pure and moral
character gave place to equally bad, unclean, and immoral practices, when
Indian society trembled under the infernal dance of the various races of
barbarians who were allowed into the Buddhistic fold by virtue of its
universal all-embracing spirit of equality — then Shankara, and later
Ramanuja, appeared on the scene and tried their best to bring society back
to its former days of glory and re-establish its lost status. Again, it is
an undoubted fact that if there had not been the advent of Kabir, Nanak, and
Chaitanya in the Mohammedan period, and the establishment of the Brahmo
Samaj and the Arya Samaj in our own day, then, by this time, the Mohammedans
and the Christians would have far outnumbered the Hindus of the present day
in India.

What better material is there than nourishing food to build up the body
composed of various elements, and the mind which sends out infinite waves of
thought? But if that food which goes to sustain the body and strengthen the
mind is not properly assimilated, and the natural functions of the body do
not work properly, then that very thing becomes the root of all evil.

The individual's life is in the life of the whole, the individual's
happiness is in the happiness of the whole; apart from the whole, the
individual's existence is inconceivable — this is an eternal truth and is
the bed-rock on which the universe is built. To move slowly towards the
infinite whole, bearing a constant feeling of intense sympathy and sameness
with it, being happy with its happiness and being distressed in its
affliction, is the individual's sole duty. Not only is it his duty, but in
its transgression is his death, while compliance with this great truth leads
to life immortal. This is the law of nature, and who can throw dust into her
ever-watchful eyes? None can hoodwink society and deceive it for any length
of time. However much there may have accumulated heaps of refuse and mud on
the surface of society — still, at the bottom of those heaps the life-breath
of society is ever to be found pulsating with the vibrations of universal
love and self-denying compassion for all. Society is like the earth that
patiently bears incessant molestations; but she wakes up one day, however
long that may be in coming, and the force of the shaking tremors of that
awakening hurls off to a distance the accumulated dirt of self-seeking
meanness piled up during millions of patient and silent years!

We ignore this sublime truth; and though we suffer a thousand times for our
folly, yet, in our absurd foolishness, impelled by the brute in us, we do
not believe in it. We try to deceive, but a thousand times we find we are
deceived ourselves, and yet we do not desist! Mad that we are, we imagine we
can impose on nature' With our shortsighted vision we think ministering to
the self at any cost is the be-all and end-all of life.

Wisdom, knowledge, wealth, men, strength, prowess and whatever else nature
gathers and provides us with, are all only for diffusion, when the moment of
need is at hand. We often forget this fact, put the stamp of "mine only"
upon the entrusted deposits, and pari passu, we sow the seed of our own
ruin!

The king, the centre of the forces of the aggregate of his subjects, soon
forgets that those forces are only stored with him so that he may increase
and give them back a thousandfold in their potency, so that they may spread
over the whole community for its good. Attributing all Godship to himself,
in his pride, like the king Vena[13] he looks upon other people as wretched
specimens of humanity who should grovel before him; any opposition to his
will, whether good or bad, is a great sin on the part of his subjects. Hence
oppression steps into the place of protection — sucking their blood in place
of preservation. If the society is weak and debilitated, it silently suffers
all ill-treatment at the hands of the king, and as the natural consequence,
both the king and his people go down and down and fall into the most
degraded state, and thus become an easy prey to any nation stronger than
themselves. Where the society is healthy and strong, there soon follows a
fierce contest between the king and his subjects, and, by its reaction and
convulsion, are flung away the sceptre and the crown; and the throne and the
royal paraphernalia become like past curiosities preserved in the museum
galleries.

As the result of this contest — as its reaction — is the appearance of the
mighty power of the Vaishya, before whose angry glance the crowned heads,
the lords of heroes, tremble like an aspen leaf on their thrones — whom the
poor as well as the prince humbly follow in vain expectation of the golden
jar in his hands, that like Tantalus's fruit always recedes from the grasp.

The Brahmin said, "Learning is the power of all powers; that learning is
dependent upon me, I possess that learning, so the society must follow my
bidding." For some days such was the case. The Kshatriya said, "But for the
power of my sword, where would you be, O Brahmin, with all your power of
lore? You would in no time be wiped off the face of the earth. It is I alone
that am the superior." Out flew the flaming sword from the jingling scabbard
— society humbly recognised it with bended head. Even the worshipper of
learning was the first to turn into the worshipper of the king. The Vaishya
is saying, "You, madmen I what you call the effulgent all-pervading deity is
here, in my hand, the ever-shining gold, the almighty sovereign. Behold,
through its grace, I am also equally all-powerful. O Brahmin! even now, I
shall buy through its grace all your wisdom, learning, prayers, and
meditation. And, O great king! your sword, arms, valour, and prowess will
soon be employed, through the grace of this, my gold, in carrying out my
desired objects. Do you see those lofty and extensive mills? Those are my
hives. See, how, swarms of millions of bees, the Shudras, are incessantly
gathering honey for those hives. Do you know for whom? For me, this me, who
in due course of time will squeeze out every drop of it for my own use and
profit."

As during the supremacy of the Brahmin and the Kshatriya, there is a
centralization of learning and advancement of civilization, so the result of
the supremacy of the Vaishya is accumulation of wealth. The power of the
Vaishya lies in the possession of that coin, the charm of whose clinking
sound works with an irresistible fascination on the minds of the four
castes. The Vaishya is always in fear lest the Brahmin swindles him out of
this, his only possession, and lest the Kshatriya usurps it by virtue of his
superior strength of arms. For self-preservation, the Vaishyas as a body
are, therefore, of one mind. The Vaishya commands the money; the exorbitant
interest that he can exact for its use by others, as with a lash in his
hand, is his powerful weapon which strikes terror in the heart of all. By
the power of his money, he is always busy curbing the royal power. That the
royal power may not anyhow stand in the way of the inflow of his riches, the
merchant is ever watchful. But, for all that, he has never the least wish
that the power should pass on from the kingly to the Shudra class.

To what country does not the merchant go? Though himself ignorant, he
carries on his trade and transplants the learning, wisdom, art, and science
of one country to another. The wisdom, civilization, and arts that
accumulated in the heart of the social body during the Brahmin and the
Kshatriya supremacies are being diffused in all directions by the arteries
of commerce to the different market-places of the Vaishya. But for the
rising of this Vaishya power, who would have carried today the culture,
learning, acquirements, and articles of food and luxury of one end of the
world to the other?

And where are they through whose physical labour only are possible the
influence of the Brahmin, the prowess of the Kshatriya, and the fortune of
the Vaishya? What is their history, who, being the real body of society, are
designated at all times in all countries as "baseborn"? — for whom kind
India prescribed the mild punishments, "Cut out his tongue, chop off his
flesh", and others of like nature, for such a grave offence as any attempt
on their part to gain a share of the knowledge and wisdom monopolised by her
higher classes — those "moving corpses" of India and the "beasts of burden"
of other countries — the Shudras, what is their lot in life? What shall I
say of India? Let alone her Shudra class, her Brahmins to whom belonged the
acquisition of scriptural knowledge are now the foreign professors, her
Kshatriyas the ruling Englishmen, and Vaishyas, too, the English in whose
bone and marrow is the instinct of trade, so that, only the Shudra-ness —
the-beast-of-burdenness — is now left with the Indians themselves.

A cloud of impenetrable darkness has at present equally enveloped us all.
Now there is neither firmness of purpose nor boldness of enterprise, neither
courage of heart nor strength of mind, neither aversion to maltreatments by
others nor dislike for slavery, neither love in the heart nor hope nor
manliness; but what we have in India are only deep-rooted envy and strong
antipathy against one another, morbid desire to ruin by hook or by crook the
weak, and to lick dog-like the feet of the strong. Now the highest
satisfaction consists in the display of wealth and power, devotion in
self-gratification, wisdom in the accumulation of transitory objects, Yoga
in hideous diabolical practices, work in the slavery of others, civilisation
in base imitation of foreign nations, eloquence in the use of abusive
language, the merit of literature in extravagant flatteries of the rich or
in the diffusion of ghastly obscenities! What to speak separately of the
distinct Shudra class of such a land, where the whole population has
virtually come down to the level of the Shudra? The Shudras of countries
other than India have become, it seems, a little awake; but they are wanting
in proper education and have only the mutual hatred of men of their own
class — a trait common to Shudras. What avails it if they greatly outnumber
the other classes? That unity, by which ten men collect the strength of a
million, is yet far away from the Shudra; hence, according to the law of
nature, the Shudras invariably form the subject race.

But there is hope. In the mighty course of time, the Brahmin and the other
higher castes, too, are being brought down to the lower status of the
Shudras, and the Shudras are being raised to higher ranks. Europe, once the
land of Shudras enslaved by Rome, is now filled with Kshatriya valour. Even
before our eyes, powerful China, with fast strides, is going down to
Shudra-hood, while insignificant Japan, rising with the sudden start of a
rocket, is throwing off her Shudra nature and is invading by degrees the
rights of the higher castes. The attaining of modern Greece and Italy to
Kshatriya-hood and the decline of Turkey, Spain, and other countries, also,
deserve consideration here.

Yet, a time will come when there will be the rising of the Shudra class,
with their Shudra-hood; that is to say, not like that as at present when the
Shudras are becoming great by acquiring the characteristic qualities of the
Vaishya or the Kshatriya, but a time will come when the Shudras of every
country, with their inborn Shudra nature and habits — not becoming in
essence Vaishya or Kshatriya, but remaining as Shudras — will gain absolute
supremacy in every society. The first glow of the dawn of this new power has
already begun to break slowly upon the Western world, and the thoughtful are
at their wits' end to reflect upon the final issue of this fresh phenomenon.
Socialism, Anarchism, Nihilism,[14] and other like sects are the vanguard
of the social revolution that is to follow. As the result of grinding
pressure and tyranny, from time out of mind, the Shudras, as a rule, are
either meanly senile, licking dog-like the feet of the higher class, or
otherwise are as inhuman as brute beasts. Again, at all times their hopes
and aspirations are baffled; hence a firmness of purpose and perseverance in
action they have none.

In spite of the spread of education in the West, there is a great hindrance
in the way of the rising of the Shudra class, and that is the recognition of
caste as determined by the inherence of more or less good or bad qualities.
By this very qualitative caste system which obtained in India in ancient
days, the Shudra class was kept down, bound hand and foot. In the first
place, scarcely any opportunity was given to the Shudra for the accumulation
of wealth or the earning of proper knowledge and education; to add to this
disadvantage, if ever a man of extraordinary parts and genius were born of
the Shudra class, the influential higher sections of the society forthwith
showered titular honours on him and lifted him up to their own circle. His
wealth and the power of his wisdom were employed for the benefit of an alien
caste — and his own caste-people reaped no benefits of his attainments; and
not only so, the good-for-nothing people, the scum and refuse of the higher
castes, were cast off and thrown into the Shudra class to swell their
number. Vasishtha, Nârada, Satyakâma Jâbâla, Vyâsa, Kripa, Drona, Karna, and
others of questionable parentage[15] were raised to the position of a
Brahmin or a Kshatriya, in virtue of their superior learning or valour; but
it remains to be seen how the prostitute, maidservant, fisherman, or the
charioteer[16] class was benefited by these upliftings. Again, on the other
hand, the fallen from the Brahmin, the Kshatriya, or the Vaishya class were
always brought down to fill the ranks of the Shudras.

In modern India, no one born of Shudra parents, be he a millionaire or a
great Pandit, has ever the right to leave his own society, with the result
that the power of his wealth, intellect, or wisdom, remaining confined
within his own caste limits, is being employed for the betterment of his own
community. This hereditary caste system of India, being thus unable to
overstep its own bounds, is slowly but surely conducing to the advancement
of the people moving within the same circle. The improvement of the lower
classes of India will go on, in this way, so long as India will be under a
government dealing with its subjects irrespective of their caste and
position.

Whether the leadership of society be in the hands of those who monopolise
learning or wield the power of riches or arms, the source of its power is
always the subject masses. By so much as the class in power severs itself
from this source, by so much is it sure to become weak. But such is the
strange irony of fate, such is the queer working of Mâyâ, that they from
whom this power is directly or indirectly drawn, by fair means or foul — by
deceit, stratagem, force, or by voluntary gift — they soon cease to be taken
into account by the leading class. When in course of time, the priestly
power totally estranged itself from the subject masses, the real dynamo of
its power, it was overthrown by the then kingly power taking its stand on
the strength of the subject people; again, the kingly power, judging itself
to be perfectly independent, created a gaping chasm between itself and the
subject people, only to be itself destroyed or become a mere puppet in the
hands of the Vaishyas, who now succeeded in securing a relatively greater
co-operation of the mass of the people. The Vaishyas have now gained their
end; so they no longer deign to count on help from the subject people and
are trying their best to dissociate themselves from them; consequently, here
is being sown the seed of the destruction of this power as well.

Though themselves the reservoir of all powers, the subject masses, creating
an eternal distance between one another, have been deprived of all their
legitimate rights; and they will remain so as long as this sort of relation
continues.

A common danger, or sometimes a common cause of hatred or love, is the bond
that binds people together. By the same law that herds beasts of prey
together, men also unite into a body and form a caste or a nation of their
own. Zealous love for one's own people and country, showing itself in bitter
hatred against another — as of Greece against Persia, or Rome against
Carthage, of the Arab against the Kafir, of Spain against the Moor, of
France against Spain, of England and Germany against France, and of America
against England — is undoubtedly one of the main causes which lead to the
advancement of one nation over another, by way of uniting itself in
hostilities against another.

Self-love is the first teacher of self-renunciation. For the preservation of
the individual's interest only one looks first to the well-being of the
whole. In the interest of one's own nation is one's own interest; in the
well-being of one's own nation is one's own well-being. Without the
co-operation of the many, most words can by no means go on — even
self-defence becomes an impossibility. The joining of friendly hands in
mutual help for the protection of this self-interest is seen in every
nation, and in every land. Of course, the circumference of this
self-interest varies with different people. To multiply and to have the
opportunity of somehow dragging on a precarious existence, and over and
above this, the condition that the religious pursuits of the higher castes
may not suffer in any way, is of the highest gain and interest for Indians!
For modern India, there is no better hope conceivable; this is the last rung
of the ladder of India's life!

The present government of India has certain evils attendant on it, and there
are some very great and good parts in it as well. Of highest good is this,
that after the fall of the Pâtaliputra Empire till now, India was never
under the guidance of such a powerful machinery of government as the
British, wielding the sceptre throughout the length and breadth of the land.
And under this Vaishya supremacy, thanks to the strenuous enterprise natural
to the Vaishya, as the objects of commerce are being brought from one end of
the world to another, so at the same time, as its natural sequence, the
ideas and thoughts of different countries are forcing their way into the
very bone and marrow of India. Of these ideas and thoughts, some are really
most beneficial to her, some are harmful, while others disclose the
ignorance and inability of the foreigners to determine what is truly good
for the inhabitants of this country.

But piercing through the mass of whatever good or evil there may be is seen
rising the sure emblem of India's future prosperity — that as the result of
the action and reaction between her own old national ideals on the one hand,
and the newly-introduced strange ideals of foreign nations on the other, she
is slowly and gently awakening from her long deep sleep. Mistakes she will
make, let her: there is no harm in that; in all our actions, errors and
mistakes are our only teachers. Who commits mistaken the path of truth is
attainable by him only. Trees never make mistakes, nor do stones fall into
error; animals are hardly seen to transgress the fixed laws of nature; but
man is prone to err, and it is man who becomes God-on-earth. If our every
movement from the nursery to the death-bed, if our every thought from rising
at day-break till retirement at midnight, be prescribed and laid down for us
in minutest detail by others — and if the threat of the king's sword be
brought into requisition to keep us within the iron grasp of those
prescribed rules — then, what remains for us to think independently for
ourselves? What makes a man a genius, a sage? Isn't it because he thinks,
reasons, wills? Without exercise, the power of deep thinking is lost. Tamas
prevails, the mind gets dull and inert, the spirit is brought down to the
level of matter. Yet, even now, every religious preacher, every social
leader is anxious to frame new laws and regulations for the guidance of
society! Does the country stand in want of rules? Has it not enough of them?
Under the oppression of rules, the whole nation is verging on its ruin — who
stops to understand this?

In the case of an absolute and arbitrary monarchy, the conquered race is not
treated with so much contempt by the ruling power. Under such an absolute
government, the rights of all subjects are equal, in other words, no one has
any right to question or control the governing authority. So there remains
very little room for special privileges of caste and the like. But where the
monarchy is controlled by the voice of the ruling race, or a republican form
of government rules the conquered race, there a wide distance is created
between the ruling and the ruled; and the most part of that power, which, if
employed solely for the well-being of the ruled classes, might have done
immense good to them within a short time, is wasted by the government in its
attempts and applications to keep the subject race under its entire control.
Under the Roman Emperorship, foreign subjects were, for this very reason,
happier than under the Republic of Rome. For this very reason, St. Paul, the
Christian Apostle, though born of the conquered Jewish race, obtained
permission to appeal to the Roman Emperor, Caesar, to judge of the charges
laid against him[17] Because some individual Englishman
may call us "natives" or "riggers" and hate us as uncivilized savages, we do
not gain or lose by that. We, on account of caste distinctions, have among
ourselves far stronger feelings of hatred and scorn against one another; and
who can say that the Brahmins, if they get some foolish unenlightened
Kshatriya king on their side, will not graciously try again to "cut out the
Shudras' tongues and chop off their limbs"? That recently in Eastern
Aryavarta, the different caste-people seem to develop a feeling of united
sympathy amidst themselves with a view to ameliorating their present social
condition — that in the Mahratta country, the Brahmins have begun to sing
paeans in praise of the "Marâthâ" race — these, the lower castes cannot yet
believe to be the outcome of pure disinterestedness.

But gradually the idea is being formed in the minds of the English public
that the passing away of the Indian Empire from their sway will end in
imminent peril to the English nation, and be their ruin. So, by any means
whatsoever, the supremacy of England must be maintained in India. The way to
effect this, they think, is by keeping uppermost in the heart of every
Indian the mighty prestige and glory of the British nation. It gives rise to
both laughter and tears simultaneously to observe how this ludicrous and
pitiful sentiment is gaining ground among the English, and how they are
steadily extending their modus operandi for the carrying out of this
sentiment into practice. It seems as if the Englishmen resident in India are
forgetting that so long as that fortitude, that perseverance, and that
intense national unity of purpose, by which Englishmen have earned this
Indian Empire — and that ever wide-awake commercial genius aided by science'
which has turned even India, the mother of all riches, into the principal
mart of England — so long as these characteristics are not eliminated from
their national life, their throne in India is unshakable. So long as these
qualities are inherent in the British character, let thousands of such
Indian Empires be lost, thousands will be earned again. But if the flow of
the stream of those qualifier be retarded, shall an Empire be governed by
the mere emblazoning of British prestige and glory? Therefore when such
remarkable traits of character are still predominant in the English as a
nation, it is utterly useless to spend so much energy and power for the mere
preservation of meaningless "prestige". If that power were employed for the
welfare of the subject-people, that, would certainly have been a great gain
for both the ruling and the ruled races.

It has been said before that India is slowly awakening through her friction
with the outside nations; and as the result of this little awakening, is the
appearance, to a certain extent, of free and independent thought in modern
India. On one side is modern Western science, dazzling the eyes with the
brilliancy of myriad suns and driving in the chariot of hard and fast facts
collected by the application of tangible powers direct in their incision, on
the other are the hopeful and strengthening traditions of her ancient
forefathers, in the days when she was at the zenith of her glory —
traditions that have been brought out of the pages of her history by the
great sages of her own land and outside, that run for numberless years and
centuries through her every vein with the quickening of life drawn from
universal love — traditions that reveal unsurpassed valour, superhuman
genius, and supreme spirituality, which are the envy of the gods — these
inspire her with future hopes. On one side, rank materialism, plenitude of
fortune, accumulation of gigantic power, and intense sense-pursuits have,
through foreign literature, caused a tremendous stir; on the other, through
the confounding din of all these discordant sounds, she hears, in low yet
unmistakable accents, the heart-rending cries of her ancient gods, cutting
her to the quick. There lie before her various strange luxuries introduced
from the West — celestial drinks, costly well-served food, splendid apparel,
magnificent palaces, new modes of conveyance, new manners, new fashions
dressed in which moves about the well-educated girl in shameless freedom —
all these are arousing unfelt desires. Again, the scene changes, and in its
place appear, with stern presence, Sitâ, Sâvitri, austere religious vows,
fastings, the forest retreat, the matted locks and orange garb of the
semi-naked Sannyasin, Samâdhi and the search after the Self. On one side is
the independence of Western societies based on self-interest; on the other
is the extreme self-sacrifice of the Aryan society. In this violent
conflict, is it strange that Indian society should be tossed up and down? Of
the West, the goal is individual independence, the language money-making
education, the means politics; of India, the goal is Mukti, the language the
Veda, the means renunciation. For a time, Modern India thinks, as it were, I
am ruining this worldly life of mine in vain expectation of uncertain
spiritual welfare hereafter which has spread its fascination over one; and
again, lo! spellbound she listens —

इति संसारे स्फुटतरदोषः कथमिह मानव तव सन्तोषः —"Here, in this world of death and change, O man, where is thy happiness?"

On one side, new India is saying, "We should have full freedom in the
selection of husband and wife; because the marriage, in which are involved
the happiness and misery of all our future life, we must have the right to
determine according to our own free will." On the other, old India is
dictating, "Marriage is not for sense-enjoyment, but to perpetuate the race.
This is the Indian conception of marriage. By the producing of children, you
are contributing to, and are responsible for, the future good or evil of the
society. Hence society has the right to dictate whom you shall marry and
whom you shall not. That form of marriage obtains in society which is
conducive most to its well-being; do you give up your desire of individual
pleasure for the good of the many."

On one side, new India is saying, "If we only adopt Western ideas, Western
language, Western food, Western dress, and Western manners, we shall be as
strong and powerful as the Western nations"; on the other, old India is
saying, "Fools! By imitation, other's ideas never become one's own; nothing,
unless earned, is your own. Does the ass in the lion's skin become the
lion?"

On one side, new India is saving, "What the Western nations do is surely
good, otherwise how did they become so great?" On the other side, old India
is saying, "The flash of lightning is intensely bright, but only for a
moment; look out, boys, it is dazzling your eyes. Beware! "

Have we not then to learn anything from the West? Must we not needs try and
exert ourselves for better things? Are we perfect? Is our society entirely
spotless, without any flaw. There are many things to learn, he must struggle
for new and higher things till we die — struggle is the end of human life.
Shri Ramakrishna used to say, "As long as I live, so long do I learn." That
man or that society which has nothing to learn is already in the jaws of
death. Yes, learn we must many things from the West: but there are fears as
well.

A certain young man of little understanding used always to blame the Hindu
Shâstras before Shri Ramakrishna. One day he praised the Bhagavad-Gita, on
which Shri Ramakrishna said, "Methinks, some European Pandit has praised the
Gita, and so he has also followed suit."

O India, this is your terrible danger. The spell of imitating the West is
getting such a strong hold upon you that what is good or what is bad is no
longer decided by reason, judgment, discrimination, or reference to the
Shastras. Whatever ideas, whatever manners the white men praise or like are
good; whatever things they dislike or censure are bad. Alas! what can be a
more tangible proof of foolishness than this?

The Western ladies move freely everywhere, therefore that is good; they
choose for themselves their husbands, therefore that is the highest step of
advancement; the Westerners disapprove of our dress, decorations, food, and
ways of living, therefore they must be very bad; the Westerners condemn
image-worship as sinful, surely then, image-worship is the greatest sin,
there is no doubt of it!

The Westerners say that worshipping a single Deity is fruitful of the
highest spiritual good, therefore let us throw our gods and goddesses into
the river Ganga! The Westerners hold caste distinctions to be obnoxious,
therefore let all the different castes be jumbled into one! The Westerners
say that child-marriage is the root of all evils, therefore that is also
very bad, of a certainty it is!

We are not discussing here whether these customs deserve continuance or
rejection; but if the mere disapproval of the Westerners be the measure of
the abominableness of our manners and customs, then it is our duty to raise
our emphatic protest against it.

The present writer has, to some extent, personal experience of Western
society. His conviction resulting from such experience has been that there
is such a wide divergence between the Western society and the Indian as
regards the primal course and goal of each, that any sect in India, framed
after the Western model, will miss the aim. We have not the least sympathy
with those who, never leaving lived in Western society and, therefore,
utterly ignorant of the rules and prohibitions regarding the association of
men and women that obtain there, and which act as safeguards to preserve the
purity of the Western women, allow a free rein to the unrestricted
intermingling of men and women in our society.

I have observed in the West also that the children of weaker nations, if
born in England, give themselves out as Englishmen, instead of Greek,
Portuguese, Spaniard, etc., as the case may be. All drift towards the
strong. That the light of glory which shines in the glorious may anyhow fall
and reflect on one's own body, i.e. to shine in the borrowed light of the
great, is the one desire of the weak. When I see Indians dressed in European
apparel and costumes, the thought comes to my mind, perhaps they feel
ashamed to own their nationality and kinship with the ignorant, poor,
illiterate, downtrodden people of India! Nourished by the blood of the Hindu
for the last fourteen centuries, the Parsee is no longer a "native"! Before
the arrogance of the casteless, who pretend to be and glorify themselves in
being Brahmins, the true nobility of the old, heroic, high-class Brahmin
melts into nothingness! Again, the Westerners have now taught us that those
stupid, ignorant, low-caste millions of India, clad only in loin-cloths, are
non-Aryans. They are therefore no more our kith and kin!

O India! With this mere echoing of others, with this base imitation of
others, with this dependence on others this slavish weakness, this vile
detestable cruelty — wouldst thou, with these provisions only, scale the
highest pinnacle of civilisation and greatness? Wouldst thou attain, by
means of thy disgraceful cowardice, that freedom deserved only by the brave
and the heroic? O India! Forget not that the ideal of thy womanhood is Sita,
Savitri, Damayanti; forget not that the God thou worshippest is the great
Ascetic of ascetics, the all-renouncing Shankara, the Lord of Umâ; forget
not that thy marriage, thy wealth, thy life are not for sense-pleasure, are
not for thy individual personal happiness; forget not that thou art born as
a sacrifice to the Mother's altar; forget not that thy social order is but
the reflex of the Infinite Universal Motherhood; forget not that the lower
classes, the ignorant, the poor, the illiterate, the cobbler, the sweeper,
are thy flesh and blood, thy brothers. Thou brave one, be bold, take
courage, be proud that thou art an Indian, and proudly proclaim, "I am an
Indian, every Indian is my brother." Say, "The ignorant Indian, the poor and
destitute Indian, the Brahmin Indian, the Pariah Indian, is my brother."
Thou, too, clad with but a rag round thy loins proudly proclaim at the top
of thy voice: "The Indian is my brother, the Indian is my life, India's gods
and goddesses are my God. India's society is the cradle of my infancy, the
pleasure-garden of my youth, the sacred heaven, the Varanasi of my old age."
Say, brother: "The soil of India is my highest heaven, the good of India is
my good," and repeat and pray day and night, "O Thou Lord of Gauri, O Thou
Mother of the Universe, vouchsafe manliness unto me! O Thou Mother of
Strength, take away my weakness, take away my unmanliness, and make me a
Man!"

Notes

↑ Vedic hymns uttered by the priests to invoke the Devas
at the time of sacrifice.

↑Agnivarna was a prince
of the Solar race, who never used to come out of the seraglio,
and died of consumption due to excessive indulgence.

↑The great king Asoka was at first called
Chandashoka, i.e. Fierce Asoka, because of his ascending the throne by killing his
brother and his other cruel deeds. After nine years of reign he became a convert to
Buddhism and his character underwent a complete transformation; he was thenceforth
known for his good deeds by the name of Dharmashoka, Virtuous Asoka.

↑ Literally, "government by five", in which the
village-men sit together and decide among themselves, all disputes.

↑Suppression of any bodily faculty, thereby causing a
person's ruin, removing him from a position, subduing and getting mastery over him,
and killing him by means of magical incantations.

↑ The sacred tuft or lock of hair left on the crown of the head
at tonsure.

↑ Taken from one
of the well-known didactic verses of the statesman-Pandit, Chânakya, which runs
thus: "Let the father treat with tenderness the child till he is five, let him
(the father) reprove him (the child) for the next ten years; when the son attains
the age of sixteen, the father ought to deal with him as his friend."

↑ His story occurs in the Bhâgavata.
The King Vena thought himself higher than Brahmâ, Vishnu, and Maheshvara,
and declared accordingly that all worship should be offered to him.
The Rishis once sought him and tried by good advice to make him give up such
egoism, but he in return insulted them and ordered them to worship him,
whereupon, it is said, he was destroyed by the fire of the anger of the Rishis.

↑Socialism took its birth in 1835 A.D.
The initiator of Anarchism was Bakunin, who was born in 1814 A.D.
Nihilism was first inaugurated in Russia in 1862.

↑
(1) Vasishtha's father was Brahmâ and mother unknown.
(2) Narada's mother was a maidservant and father unknown.
(3) Satyakama Jabala's mother was a maidservant, by name Jabâlâ, and father unknown.
(4) Vyasa's father was a Brahmin sage Parâshara, and mother Matsyagandhâ, the virgin daughter of a fisherman.
(5) Kripa s father was a Brahmin sage, Sharadvân Gautama, and mother the goddess Jânapadi.
(6) Drona's father was the Brahmin sage, Bharadvâja, and mother the goddess Ghritâchi.
(7) Karna's mother was Kunti, who conceived during her maidenhood, and father the god sun.
For detailed information vide the accounts of their births:
for (1), see chapter 174, Âdiparva, Mahabharata, or in Rigveda, 7, 33, 11-13;
for (2), chapter 6, Skandha I, Srimad Bhagavata,
for (3) section 4 Prapâthaka iv, Chhândogya Upanishad;
for (4), (5), (6) and (7) chapters 105, 130, 130 and 111, respectively of the Âdiparva of the Mahabharata.

↑In her anxiety to save her reputation, Kunti threw the newborn child Karna,
into water. A charioteer found the child in his pitiable condition and
adopted him as his son.